PRO FOOTBALL

PRO FOOTBALL; Bills Leave Chiefs With Nowhere to Go

By THOMAS GEORGE,

Published: January 6, 1992

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y., Jan. 5—
The Buffalo Bills had decided long before the kickoff that their playoff fight here this afternoon with the Kansas City Chiefs would be decided by turning the game into a match of options on offense.

Buffalo had several such options, Kansas City had one, and several nearly always beats one. This game was not an exception, and the Bills rolled to a 37-14 victory to earn a spot in their second consecutive American Conference championship game.

Buffalo (14-3) will meet Denver (13-4) here in Rich Stadium next Sunday to decide the championship of the American Conference. If the Bills win, it will mean a return trip to the Super Bowl, where they narrowly lost last January to the Giants.

Today, a spirited crowd of 80,182 spectators saw the Bills win their third straight playoff game here over the last two seasons, by what is now a combined score of 132-51.

The Bills are still alive because their defense limited the one-dimensional Chiefs' offense to 77 rushing yards, with no single run of longer than 9 yards. And the Bills are alive because they were more versatile on offense. They ran for 180 yards, passed for 273 more, ran for a touchdown and passed for three others.

Buffalo leaped to a 17-0 halftime lead and then made it 24-0 before the Chiefs could score their first points of the day, late in the third quarter. The Chiefs live by the running game. Their passing game, their special teams, their kicking game -- everything evolves around their ability to run the football and use the clock and field position to their advantage.

The Bills would have none of that.

"We took them out of their game plan and put them in a passing mode," said Bills linebacker Cornelius Bennett, who roamed the field and set the tone early with a crunching tackle on Chiefs running back Barry Word. "They are not a passing team. Down as much as they were, they had to try and become one. That just gave us a chance to get on our toes and go after them full blast instead of playing on our heels like the last time."

The last time came in the regular-season meeting between these teams, on Oct. 6 in Kansas City. The Chiefs ran wild over the Bills in that game, gaining 239 yards rushing in a 33-6 victory.

"We learned one thing from that," said Bills linebacker Darryl Talley. "If you don't play physical against them and hit up in the holes as linebackers and linemen, they're going to run the ball down your throats. They are a big, strong, physical football team."

But too one-dimensional.

Word explained it best: "Everyone in the world knew we were going to run the ball. So when someone shuts down your running game, you have to be able to do something else. We weren't able to do something else to open it up. We got away from our game plan and they capitalized on it."

It was simply a matter of getting down and dirty in the trenches, said Bills nose tackle Jeff Wright, who along with defensive end Bruce Smith had missed the October game with Kansas City due to injury.

"We played our basic defense and we were determined to control the line of scrimmage," Wright said. "There's nothing fancy about that. You get down, you get physical and you use 11 to stop them from running the ball. They couldn't play-action pass as effectively if you've shut them down on two straight runs and it's third and whatever and they've got to pass then."

And often that was the situation for the Chiefs, which helped lead to four second-half interceptions at the expense of backup quarterback Mark Vlasic. DeBerg Is Injured

Steve DeBerg started at quarterback for Kansas City, but left early in the second quarter with a sprained right thumb. The Chiefs trailed by 14-0 at that juncture and DeBerg had completed only 5 of 9 passes for 22 yards. At halftime, the Chiefs had three first downs and 51 rushing yards, and had allowed scoring receptions of 25 and 53 yards to Andre Reed and a 33-yard field goal by Scott Norwood.

Kelly was intercepted twice in the half, but the Chiefs could not take advantage of their thefts. In fact, the big play for the Chiefs was the interception they didn't make.

Cornerback Kevin Ross stepped in front of a Kelly pass and had a clear shot at a 60-yard interception return for a touchdown down the right sideline, but he dropped the ball. His drop preceded Norwood's field goal with two seconds left before halftime. Instead of trailing by 14-7, Kansas City was down by 17-0.

"We were able to get three interceptions total but we had the one chance to make a big play on the one that got away from us," said Chiefs Coach Marty Schottenheimer. "We never really got the rhythm of it going or the flow of it going. I think they had the bit in their mouths, so to speak, in terms of getting the running game taken care of and we just didn't get it done efficiently on our end."

That's how futile the Kansas City offense was for most of three quarters: The Chiefs were lamenting about the points that their defense did not score. 'No Production'

"There was no production for our offense and you can only ask your defense to do so much," said Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas. "We have to come up with game plans where we are the aggressor instead of sitting back and letting the game be dictated by the other team."

When Word scored on a 3-yard run with 3:08 left in the third quarter, the Chiefs trailed, 24-7. The Bills would score the first 13 points of the fourth quarter to make Vlasic's 20-yard scoring pass to receiver Fred Jones an afterthought. On that drive and score, the Chiefs -- surprise -- shucked the running game and put four receivers in the game.

"The extra week off really helped our defense prepare for their running game," Bills Coach Marv Levy said. "Kansas City has a better passing offense than people think. In this league, and especially in the playoffs, you need balance on offense. I'm glad we've got it."